


Unborne

by geekprincess26



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arranged Marriage, Drama, F/M, Misunderstandings, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 06:09:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11640561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geekprincess26/pseuds/geekprincess26
Summary: Years of tragedy and pain had taught Sansa Stark which burdens she could bear and which she could not - but not which burdens had never existed in the first place.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for JonsaInTheNorth as part of the inaugural round of the Jonsa Gift Exchange on Tumblr.

 

 

Sansa Stark could endure many things.

 

She had survived the sight of Ser Ilyn Payne striking her father’s head off not ten yards away from her. She had borne countless beatings and slaps and sneers and sly insults from Joffrey, his men, and his mother in the years that had followed. She had kept her sanity when Aunt Lysa and Sweetrobin (if he’d ever had any), with whom she had thought she could find a home, had lost their own. She had withstood months of savagery at the hands of Ramsay Bolton. She had faced the humiliation of having to ask Petyr Baelish, of all people, to help her save Jon and Rickon when she could find no other way on her own. And she had kept the candles burning, the soldiers’ wounds stitched, and the refugees fed during the Long Night, when Jon and his aunt had gone off to fight the War for the Dawn.

 

So she had been able to endure Jon Snow’s returning from the war as a shaking, malnourished fraction of his former self.

 

“No man comes back from war unchanged,” her father had said, and Sansa had never had cause to doubt his word. She would have stopped doubting it in any case when she saw the haunted glaze over Jon’s gray eyes and the stoop to his shoulders and the trembling of his hands. He had, after all, fought the Night’s King face to face and come back to tell the tale, which was more than could be said for most of his soldiers. Less than half of them had returned from the final battle, and of those who did, many had lost their wits altogether. Sansa had worried at first that Jon might be one of them; but within a few days of his return, he had tried to hold a small council meeting at his bedside and begun writing instructions for the burial of the dead. His hand had shaken violently, and he had had to stop writing altogether, but he had produced a ghostly smile when Sansa had reassured him that she would take care of everything. The next day, when they had buried Arya and Bran in the crypts, he had shaken almost as violently; but afterward, he had set a torch in the wall and bent over the walking stick that helped him walk on his injured leg to murmur words Sansa could not hear in front of each grave. When he had emerged, he had asked Sansa, his voice still barely above a whisper, if she needed him to help with any of the arrangements for the funeral feast being held in the great hall. Sansa had only shaken her head, but whatever was still shaking inside of her had begun to still, and she clutched Jon’s arm tightly out of relief.

 

Slowly, as the months had worn on, Jon’s shaking had stopped, and his leg had healed. He had knelt in the dirt with the rest of Winterfell’s remaining men during the days to repair the war-torn castle and sat at Sansa’s side during the evening at council meetings, although he had insisted he belonged behind her and indeed behind all of the other lords, and certainly not at the her side, given his less than wholly Northern lineage. Sansa had had to tell him twice that the Queen in the North wished him at her side and nowhere else before he had agreed. His eyes had flashed with annoyance, and Sansa had had to hide her smile.

 

Sansa had been able to endure being married for the sake of her husband’s pity just a year after that.

 

After all, she had been married twice before: once for her husband’s family’s obsession with control over all seven kingdoms, and then once again for the claim her own family’s name would grant the man who raped and tortured her every night. She had almost been married twice as well: once for the whims of a drunken lout and for the maniacal pleasures of his supposed son, her betrothed, and then once again for the insatiable lust of the creature who had so vainly craved her own mother’s attentions.

 

Pity had been an utterly benign motive compared to all of those, and pity it was that she had seen written so plainly on Jon’s face when his aunt had announced her intention for Sansa to marry the new King of the Reach, a grand-nephew of Olenna Tyrell’s whose ruthlessness on and off the battlefield were legendary. She had seen pity, and a shade or two of guilt, overwhelm his face when his aunt had spoken, and deeper pity when she had stood up to protest and the thought of the brute setting his hand to her had overwhelmed her so thoroughly that she would have collapsed to the floor had Jon not jumped out of his seat to catch her. Pity and something she could not name had colored his face as he had gently helped her to her feet, and the pity had only disappeared when he had rounded on his aunt and begun shouting at her. His shouts had continued the following day, when he had found his aunt cornering Sansa in her own chambers to continue the prior night’s discussion about finding a suitable husband for the Queen in the North. Sansa had merely glared at the other woman, but Jon had almost burst with rage. The queen had stopped in her tracks, gotten an odd smile on her face, and said that Sansa would be lucky to have such a protective man as Jon for a husband. Sansa had still felt faint, but she had also been half afraid that the two would take their disagreement to the dragon pit if she refused, so she had agreed; and the moment she had, Jon’s eyes had widened. Sansa had taken all of two seconds to tire of the pity she had seen there, and she had turned away from him at once.

 

A month later, the queen and half the North had watched as Sansa’s uncle escorted her to Winterfell’s heart tree. Jon’s eyes had widened when he had seen her sweep into the godswood – with what Sansa could not tell from her distance – and then softened with pity again when she had reached the tree and taken his proffered arm. Despite her anxiety, Sansa had liked the end of the ceremony better than all the rest of it; for when Jon’s warm hand had steadied her neck and his warm lips had softened around hers, she had avoided the pity. She had even felt a pleasing tingle in her chest for a brief moment before Jon had withdrawn and she had had to turn and stare at the assembled guests, who by the look of them pitied her even more than Jon had.

 

That was the night Sansa had discovered she could endure her husband’s revulsion as well as she had his pity.

 

Jon had forbidden even the talk of bedding, so he and Sansa had swept upstairs to Sansa’s chambers unaccompanied by any save for the servants, whom Sansa had promptly dismissed at the door to her solar. They would have enough gossip for their grist mill on the morrow, when they stripped the bed and found her soiled sheets.

 

But the sheets, it turned out, had remained clean as a new-bathed babe. Sansa had managed to unlace her gown while Jon had turned to put up Longclaw and inspect the fire. He had finished and turned to her just as she had slid her shift off of one shoulder; and for the second time that day, his eyes had gone wide as ale horns. She had always been careful to let none but her maidservants ever see the scars Joffrey Baratheon and Ramsay Bolton had left on every part of her body not covered by dresses with sleeves at least halfway down her arms, so she had not been particularly shaken by the shock that had covered Jon’s face. She had expected to see pity there as well; but instead his eyes had darkened, and his jaw had tightened, and Sansa had turned away. She had not wanted to sour her sweet memories of Jon kissing her brow on the battlements and on her lips just a few hours before, and waving to her as he rode from Winterfell and embracing her at Castle Black, with the memory of his not being able to look at her without recoiling at the sight of her wounds.

 

“You don’t have to do that, Sansa; I won’t touch you,” he had said, and his voice had lowered to a rasp. Despite herself, Sansa had whirled around to meet his flashing eyes. Within a moment his expression had reverted to its usual inscrutability. It had been Sansa’s turn to wear the shocked look when he had bade her good night and stalked off through the door that connected her chambers with his. She had waited motionless at her own bedside for a good ten minutes before she had realized that Jon truly did not mean to have her that night. She had collapsed into bed with tears streaming down her face not long after that, although whether she cried more from relief or from hurt she could not have said.

 

But Sansa had endured that night and all the nights and days that had followed it over the past eight months.

 

She had felt the tension in Jon’s arm when he offered it to her to escort her into the great hall for breakfast. She had seen that same arm drop swiftly as soon as she reached her seat. She had watched his hand creep up next to hers on the council room chamber’s great oak table as he spoke to the assembled lords, and she had watched as he snatched it away the moment he noticed its proximity to her. She had swept up next to him time after time when he was conversing with one or two of those same lords, or laughing at one of Tormund Giantsbane’s jokes, or poring over ravens’ messages, or walking in the godswood; and just as many times, when he had noticed her approach, his body had stiffened, and his tone had changed from a low, comforting lilt to clipped and sharp. He had bade her “My lady,” without fail, but also without warmth, as if he were afraid she would order his head off if he showed her any semblance of conviviality. And night after night, he had escorted her to the door of her chambers, where night after night, he had bent his head stiffly, wished her a grave “good night,” and turned on his heel to depart for his own quarters. Sansa’s shoulders had slumped a little lower every time; but she had stiffened them, swept into her bedchamber, and reminded herself how much worse she would have had to endure with any man save Jon. Not all of the men she could have married would have beaten her or taken against her will; but almost certainly none of them would have offered her such thoughtful counsel, or deferred so readily to their queen’s decisions without trying to overrule her, as Jon did. And hardly a week went by when Sansa did not find that Jon had ordered five dozen lemons added to the cooks’ orders so she could have her fill of lemon cakes, or wake to see her maids adorning her night table with a glass of flowers he had cut himself for her from the glass gardens, or even find a new pendant or hairpin adorned with blue stones winking at her from her jewel case. No, if puzzling behavior was Jon’s worst flaw, she could endure it, and far better than she could Tyrion’s whoremongering or Ramsay’s brutality.

 

But when the largest Free Folk clan left in Westeros came to visit Winterfell eight months after the wedding, Sansa discovered what she could not endure.

 

She could endure the grins elicited so easily from Jon by the clan’s leader, a petite, golden-haired woman named Val with a mischievous glint in her green eyes and wits to match. She could endure the servants’ gossip about how much the King in the North enjoyed the woman’s presence. She could even endure their whispering about how the king preferred such a loud, spirited woman, so like his long-dead Free Folk lover, to the more demure and less engaging company of his wife.

 

But one day, Sansa heard murmurs about what a coincidence it was that every evening, after the king had escorted his queen to her chambers, he departed for the staircase that led to the craftsman’s halls, and without fail, the Lady of the Free Folk left her own chambers for and headed for the same halls within the span of ten minutes. She ignored the rumors as best she could for the next two days; but on the third day, curiosity got the better of her and she tiptoed out of her chambers and down the hall after Jon almost as soon as he had left her at their door. He made for the very same staircase the servants had discussed, so she swept back up the passageway and down the main stairs to the next floor, where the Lady of the Free Folk was staying. No sooner had Sansa emerged at one end of the hall than the Lady Val exited her own chambers at the other end; and the lamp the other woman carried illuminated both her progress down the hallway and its abrupt stop at the door to the very same staircase Sansa had seen her husband descend not five minutes past. The door opened and then closed, and the Lady Val and her lamp disappeared and left the passageway in darkness and Sansa frozen against the wall.

 

Perhaps it had been a coincidence, she tried to tell herself as she mounted the staircase to return to her rooms. But Jon followed the same path the following night, and, once again, so did the Lady Val.

 

And that Sansa could not endure.

 

The next morning, a new brooch from Jon turned up in her jewel case; but she did not wear it to breakfast, as she had all of the other pieces he had given her. A hurt look flashed briefly across his face when he showed up to escort her to the great hall for the morning meal, and he faltered when he greeted her with his usually impassive “Good morning, my lady.”

 

“Good morning, my lord,” replied Sansa, who spared him barely a glance before lifting her chin and resting her hand upon his arm as lightly as she could. Jon hesitated a few moments before leading her down the stairs. But when they reached the great hall, the Lady Val greeted them both warmly and then turned to Tormund Giantsbane to crack a joke that turned Jon’s stiffness into a gale of laughter.

 

No more could Sansa endure that. It took all of the training her mother had ever given her at being a lady not to round on both her husband and the woman who almost certainly had become his lover under the roof of her own childhood home and have them both thrown out. She did not, of course; but the moment the meal ended, she made her excuses to Jon about seeing the steward and swept out of the hall with his puzzled glance at her back.

 

Sansa took her luncheon and dinner in her chambers and busied herself as best she could with her sewing in between the two. She was due to visit Wintertown in two days’ time, and she had always taken with her on her visits such clothing as she and her ladies could make and mend for the children staying there who had been orphaned in the war. She could not avoid Jon by staying in her chambers and sewing forever; indeed, by dinnertime she felt as though she would suffocate if she did not get some fresh air on the morrow, and in any case she could not just stop being queen. But she did not have to endure either Jon’s presence or the Lady Val’s, and that would do for the moment. No doubt, she thought with some bitterness, they would be laughing merrily together without her anyway. So she was not altogether surprised to find tears seeping out of her eyes, down her cheeks, and onto her pillowcases when she retired early that evening. Being betrayed under her own roof, it turned out, was as hard to endure in its own way as outright brutality, especially when the man betraying her was the very same the man who had once sworn to protect her at all costs, who had patiently taught her how to wield a sword in the event some disaster should befall Winterfell while he was still on his errand to Dragonstone, and who had held her so gently as she had wept in front of Arya’s and Bran’s tombs.

 

No, Sansa supposed, enduring a few tears after the events of the past few days should have come as no shock. But she was surprised to hear the faint knock on her solar’s door, and even more surprised to find some strange part of herself hoping that it was Jon. She was downright shocked to hear another knock after a few minutes, this one at her bedchamber door, and see the door open to the light of a candle and the voice of one of her maidservants telling her that it was indeed her husband and no other who had come to see her. And she was astonished to no end when she opened her mouth to refuse and the only words that left it were, “Very well.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

The maid was halfway back to the bedchamber door before Sansa realized what she had said. “But he can wait outside,” she added. The girl gave her a quizzical look, but curtsied nonetheless.

 

Sansa took her time donning her best night robes and plaiting her hair smoothly along the crown of her head. It had its intended effect, for when she opened the door leading from her anteroom into the hallway, Jon was shifting his weight from one foot to the other, which he had always done when ill at ease.

 

“My lord,” she said, and Jon almost tripped over one foot as he turned to face her.

 

“Sansa,” he breathed, and he sounded relieved despite the worry etched into his forehead. Sansa raised one eyebrow at that, for Jon had called her nothing but “my lady” since their wedding day.

 

“May I come in?” he added, and she replied with the coolest stare she could muster.

 

“You’ve never shown any interest in coming to my chambers before, my lord,” she replied, and Jon’s face flushed pink. Sansa thought belatedly of how much gossip would fill the servants’ chambers that night when word spread of the queen making her husband stand in the hall to talk to her; but they were gossiping already about Jon’s infidelities, and if she could endure that, she could certainly endure the rest.

 

“Are you well?” Sansa turned to see the furrows deepening on Jon’s brow. “Sam said he had been to see you, and you were not ill; but you did not come to luncheon or dinner.” He looked as though he might say more; but instead he fell silent, as he had so many other times during their marriage when they had been alone and apart from any lords or other company. Sansa had tried time after time to draw him out by asking for his advice or mentioning some lord’s upcoming visit or recalling one of the precious few amusing memories they had from their time together before the war; but he had never given her any but the barest of replies, and after a few months she had stopped trying.

 

But she could well endure his silence now, especially when she had words enough for them both.

 

“Yes, I am well aware that I missed luncheon and dinner,” she answered coldly. “I am well enough, and I am glad for your concern; but I thought you would not mind my absence, seeing how splendidly you have been getting on with the Lady of the Free Folk.” She avoided spitting the last few words out of her mouth, although they came out clipped and abrupt. Jon only looked more confused.

 

“I have enjoyed meeting with her people,” he said, “especially those I have not seen since – before the war. But – has she done something to offend you? Or I?” His voice softened over the last question, more than it had done in ages, since before their wedding. It made Sansa want to cry again and beg him to hold her as he had done beneath the heart tree, as he had done back at Castle Black so long ago; and she cursed herself for her weakness. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest.

 

“Are you mocking me, my lord?” she snapped. “Or do you believe I am so unintelligent as to think a lady should find it inoffensive when her husband carries on with her most honored guest in her own ancestral home, and that without trying to pretend a semblance of care for her happiness or honor?”

 

Jon stepped back as though she had slapped him, and the hurt look that she had seen so briefly that morning reappeared with a vengeance. For a moment Sansa recalled the sharp, anguished howl of one of the puppies Ramsay had been training in the kennels the first time he had ever used a whip on it. She blinked it away and raised herself to her full height.

 

“Well?” she demanded, and Jon flinched again. “Is my question that difficult for you to understand?”

 

Finally, Jon shook his head. “No,” he replied. “I – no, but – Sansa, no. I’ve not carried on with anyone, and – why would you think that? I would never – ” He looked stricken, but Sansa cut him off with a snort.

 

“Oh, never, would you?” she snapped. “Then why have you gone to the craftsmen’s quarters directly after escorting me to my own bedchambers every night for the past three days and more, and she follows after you from her chambers straight away? Tell me that, and do not think of trying to deny it. I’ve seen it myself last night and the one before.”

 

Jon stared at her for a few moments as if the Night’s King’s crown had sprouted on top of her head. Then his shoulders sank, and he sighed.

 

“Yes, she was there and I was there,” he answered, “and some others of her people. They’ve all been helping me with something, along with Tormund.”

 

Sansa drew her arms around herself more tightly. “Helping you with what?” she demanded. Jon glanced at the floor for a moment, and when he opened his mouth to reply, she cut him off.

 

“Right,” she spat. “She was helping you with what again? Your jerkin? Your shirt?” Jon flinched, but Sansa did not pause. “Your breeches? Your cock?”

 

“No!” Jon’s face was flushed, and he took a step toward Sansa. She drew back at once, and Jon froze mid-stride, just in front of the doorway. His brow furrowed again, and he looked even more hurt than he had before.

 

“Sansa, no,” he finally said, and his voice had softened nearly to a whisper. “She – the Free Folk – they were helping me make a gift for you, for your name day.”

 

“Really?” Sansa’s jaw trembled, and she had to clench it for a moment before she continued. “What sort of gift?”

 

“I’ll show you.” Jon extended his hand as if to offer her his arm. “Will you come with me?”

 

That aroused Sansa’s curiosity, for why would Jon offer to show her anything about which he had been lying? Still, she shook her head.

 

“You can bring it to me, if you like,” she said. Jon’s face fell a little, but he nodded.

 

“All right, then,” he answered. “If you’ll wait here?”

 

He sounded a little uncertain and looked it too, much as he had on Winterfell’s ramparts so long ago when he had implored her to let them trust each other. Sansa nodded, and Jon fairly fled down the hallway toward the staircase Sansa had come to hate so much.

 

He returned not five minutes later, panting and cradling something in his hands so gingerly that Sansa thought it must be breakable. When he held it out to her, however, she saw that it was a rectangular piece of fine oak wood. The light of the hall torches illuminated the picture etched deeply into its surface: an engraving of two wolves – no, direwolves – nestling together under a heart tree. The larger of the two was resting his snout tenderly on the face of the smaller one – probably a female, although its face and fur were not yet fully carved – and his half-finished tail reached around his legs and spread outward toward his mate’s feet. Neither set of eyes was carved in, either; but that did not keep Sansa from gazing at the piece’s rough beauty for some time, although it was clearly not the work of a master. When she finally raised her eyes to Jon, his face was still flushed.

 

“It’s an old style of Free Folk carving,” he said. “Tormund says that the Lady Val – her clan was the last to practice it, so I asked them to show me how. I wanted to make something for you myself.” His flush deepened, and he looked rather like Lady had, back when she had been alive and begging silently for a treat or a kind word from her mistress. Sansa said nothing.

 

“I know it’s not much,” Jon continued, “but they’re going to help me carve out the spaces to put in gems for eyes – rubies for Ghost’s, and sapphires for Lady’s.”

 

“Lady’s?” Sansa’s gaze traveled back down to the carving. The smaller direwolf did have Lady’s large ears, now that she thought about it, although it took her a few moments to remember the creature time and her will to forget all memory of that horrible night on the Kingsroad had dimmed in her mind.

 

“Aye.” Jon’s voice had softened. “Do you – do you like it?”

 

Sansa, unable to stop herself, nodded at once. “You did all that?” she asked, and Jon nodded.

 

“It’s not very well done,” he said quickly, “and it’s not finished yet. The Free Folk have a way of attaching the stones, but they haven’t shown me yet. Tormund says it’s the Free Folk’s finest form of art, although he’s trying to impress the Lady Val with his jokes.”

 

The last part of it Sansa could believe, having observed Tormund’s unusually boisterous behavior when seated next to the Lady Val and her kin at meals. The Lady Val had always returned him jape for jape; and Sansa’s stomach clenched when she thought of it, for what if it had been Tormund and not the Lady Val whom Jon had found so amusing all this time? She blinked at the carving, and it blurred a little in front of her eyes, and it took a few moments for her to compose herself and look back up at Jon.

 

“It’s still very nice,” she said, feeling halfway guilty because, really, it was lovely; and she had had no idea that Jon could carve more than the rudimentary pegs and whistles for the children of Wintertown. But she could not bring herself to say so; and after a moment she took a step back inside the anteroom.

 

“Thank you for showing me,” she said stiffly. She expected Jon to leave, but he did not. Instead, he took a hesitant half-step toward her. She stepped backward again, and the hurt look returned tenfold.

 

“That was the only thing I was doing,” he said, and Sansa had to reverse her tracks in order to hear him clearly. “I’ve not dishonored you, Sansa. I never would, ever – ”

 

“I see that.” The words snapped through the air like a shield turning an opponent’s sword thrust. Jon flinched again.

 

“If you don’t like it,” he said after a moment, “I can make you something else – anything you’d like.”

 

Both the carving and Jon’s face swam in front of her eyes this time. Sansa blinked several times, but could not clear the haze entirely; and that she could not endure either.

 

“I don’t want anything else,” she spat, and inwardly cursed the tremor in her voice. She squared her shoulders and stared angrily at Jon; but he returned no anger to fuel her own. Instead he looked concerned – indeed, more concerned than he had throughout their entire marriage thus far.

 

“I don’t want any more of your gifts,” she continued, forcing her words over the lump gathering in her throat. “I don’t want another gift from you, not when you’re so repulsed by me that you can’t stand to look at me or talk to me or pretend I am other than disgusting to you.” The lump rose, and Sansa cleared her throat fiercely. Jon looked dumbfounded.

 

“I’m not repulsed by you; how could you think that – ” he replied, but Sansa cut him off with a fierce slash of her hand right where the door between them would have been were it shut.

 

“Come off it, my lord,” she snapped, and Jon flinched again. “You won’t look at me for even a few seconds when we are not in company. You can barely stand to touch me. You don’t speak to me normally; and don’t forget that I know what ‘normally’ means for you, Jon Snow, so don’t try to deny it!”

 

Two angry burn marks coursed down Sansa’s cheeks. She had not cried in so long that it took her a few moments to realize that they were tears. She cursed, out loud this time, and hastily wiped them away with the sleeve of her night robe.

 

“Sansa, I’m sorry.” Jon’s voice had lowered again, and when Sansa looked up from beneath her eyelashes at him, she was once again reminded of Ramsay’s puppies.

 

“I’ve not meant to hurt you or displease you, I swear,” he said. “I’ve only not wanted to upset you.”

 

“Upset me? Really? Upset me by speaking to me normally? What wife would be upset by her husband speaking to her normally, or acting like she was not diseased when he had to take her arm to escort her to dinner?” she demanded, and Jon’s shoulders slumped.

 

“I didn’t want to seem…demanding.” It took him obvious effort to come up with the last word, and Sansa wondered what he had really meant to say. Jon continued as if he had heard her speak her thoughts out loud.

 

“Like Baelish,” he added, spitting out the long-dead snake’s name like a curse. “He talked to you and grabbed at you all the time, you said; and touched you too. And Bolton.”

 

Sansa tilted her head skeptically at him. “You thought you would be acting like Ramsay Bolton if you talked to me?” she said. Jon’s face flushed again.

 

“Not talked,” he replied. “But you said even before he – married you, he would grab your arm and your waist and stare at you, and I never wanted to remind you of him, or touch you if you didn’t want it, or have you think I was speaking pretty words like that snake Baelish so I could have your favor and your bed.” He flushed a deeper shade of red and cleared his throat. Sansa narrowed her eyes at him.

 

“I can tell the difference between ‘pretty words’ and the truth, you know,” she snapped. “And I can certainly tell the difference between you and Ramsay Bolton. I’m not that stupid, Jon.”

 

“I know you’re not stupid,” sighed Jon. His shoulders slumped much the way they had before he had left for Dragonstone, when he had been drowning in council meetings and lords’ demands and Sansa, in between bouts of wanting to shout at him, had wanted only to wrap her arm around him and lay her head against his shoulder to comfort him. The same impulse returned unbidden, like a bothersome bird flying in circles above her head; but instead she crossed her arms around her chest again.

 

“I only never wanted to say anything that would make you think of either of them,” Jon finally continued, “or that scum Joffrey Baratheon, or anyone else who tried to go after you like that.” His voice had lowered again, and his jaw had clenched, as it had when he had glared down Ramsay Bolton the day before they had taken back Winterfell. “And I’d be dead again before I made you think of them touching you.” His jaw clenched harder. “So of course I wouldn’t touch you either, just like I told you. I’d never touch you. So I didn’t want to make you think I would.”

 

He spoke as though any child of five summers should be able to see the logic in it. Sansa inhaled a deep breath. Halfway through pressing it out between her lips in lieu of snapping at him again out of sheer confusion, she remembered his words to her on their wedding night. _I won’t touch you._ That, however, only confused her more.

 

“You meant never to touch me?” she asked once she had found her voice. “I thought you only decided that on our wedding night. After you saw the scars,” she added, her voice lowering.

 

“What?” Jon looked as confused as she felt. “What about them?”

 

“They’re ugly.” The words came out even more sharply than Sansa had intended. Jon still looked confused, and Sansa’s hands flew apart. “Once again, I’m not that stupid. I saw the way you looked at me. I’ve seen that revulsion on all my maids’ faces the first time they’ve undressed me and seen them.”

 

Jon shook his head. “Revolted?” he said, still looking bewildered. “No.” Sansa narrowed her eyes. Jon only shook his head. “I’d just never seen them before. I’d not realized just how much damage you took from that monster.” His voice lowered to a growl. “I was revolted at him, not you. I wanted him to be there, just so I could kill him. And kill him again. And again.” His jaw had tightened almost to a knot, and Sansa’s arms fell limply to her sides.

 

“So you weren’t revolted by me? At all?” Sansa asked after several moments, her voice small.

 

“No,” Jon said, his voice softening at once. “How could I have been revolted at you? You’re much too beautiful, Sansa.”

 

Sansa sucked in a breath, and Jon’s face swam in front of her eyes again.

 

“You’ve never said that before,” she said, but her voice was even smaller this time.

 

Jon shifted one foot. “I wanted to,” he murmured, “but I was afraid it would sound too much like something Baelish would have said to you.”

 

“It would have coming from him,” replied Sansa. “But you’re not him.”

 

Jon glanced at the floor. “Aye,” he said when he raised his eyes back to hers. “But I still didn’t want you thinking I’d try to touch you.”

 

Sansa stared at him. “But why not?” she asked, ready almost to cry from sheer confusion. “If you weren’t repulsed by me, why not?”

 

“Because you told me you didn’t want to,” Jon answered, sounding as nonplussed as she felt.

 

“I did?” Sansa bit her lip and tried to remember when she had said any such thing.

 

“Aye,” Jon replied. “You told me you never wanted to marry.”

 

Sansa closed her eyes. She had confessed that to Jon on one or two occasions, when yet another lord had arrived at Winterfell to press his suit for her hand and she had had to take to the godswood afterward so no one would see her trembling.

 

“I couldn’t give you that,” Jon continued, “but at least I thought I could give you a husband who would not touch you.”

 

Sansa opened her eyes, but her vision had blurred again, and it took more blinks than usual for her to make out Jon’s face. There she saw the tenderness that had stared back at her when he had kissed her forehead on the ramparts so long ago, and again on their wedding day when he had kissed her lips and cradled her face in his hands. Sansa blinked again.

 

“I did mean not to marry again, if I could avoid it,” she managed at last. “But I was a fool to think that I could.” She shrugged. “What I truly wanted was not to marry a man I whom I could not trust not to take me by force, or take dozens of whores, or take the Stark name away from our children even though the lords had all agreed that any children I had would be named Stark. And even that much was a complete fool’s hope, because I could trust no one that far. But then your aunt mentioned you.” She slowly lifted her eyes to meet his. “And you were the only one I could trust. That was why I agreed. I never planned for you not to touch me. I thought – ” She looked down again and twisted her hands in front of her. “I thought that when you saw the scars, you were so disgusted you could not do what you needed to make a child. And then you never came to my chambers again, so I just thought I repulsed you too much for you to have a child with me at all.” Her lip quivered, and she bit down on it. She felt Jon reach for her shoulder before she saw his hand stop only inches away from it.

 

“Wanting you was never the problem, Sansa,” he said, and her gaze snapped back up to his. The look he had given her across the clearing in the godswood on their wedding day returned, and this time she recognized both the tenderness and the desire; but the latter, far from repulsing her as it had from the eyes of other men, brought back the warm tingle she had felt near her heart when he had kissed her.

 

“I only didn’t think you wanted any of it,” Jon was saying, and Sansa shook her head.

 

“No,” she replied slowly. “Having babes was the one thing I wanted back when I was a stupid little girl that I never gave up wanting. And I knew – I knew that if I had them with you, they would have a father as good as my own. And I knew that getting them would take pain.” She bit her lip again. “But I knew you would try to make it hurt as little as you could; and I couldn’t trust anyone else for that either.”

 

“It’s not supposed to hurt.” Jon’s voice had lowered back to a growl. Sansa stared wide-eyed at him. “It’s never – what that beast Bolton did – it’s not supposed to be like that, ever.” He reached to rub the back of his neck, which had begun to turn pink. “It’s supposed to make you happy. It’s not supposed to give you pain. I’d never give you pain.”

 

“Happy?” Sansa wanted to ask how he could possibly believe that; but then she thought of her mother smiling at her father over Bran’s head across the solar some evenings, and then of Father gazing at Mother when her back was turned as though she were all the stars in the heavens and the sun besides, and after that of Alys Karstark staring at her new husband in much the same way.

 

“Aye, happy.” When Sansa looked back up at him, the flush had spread to Jon’s face; but the tenderness in his eyes had increased tenfold, and Sansa’s hand itched to reach out and hold his. “But I’d never have done anything, and I couldn’t bear to think you would think of that beast or – or any other if I touched you, even to make you happy. So I thought to try to please you with everything else. But I only hurt you anyway.”

 

His voice had lowered to a whisper, and this time when his jaw trembled, Sansa knew it was not from anger. She wondered if this was how he had felt for months and months, as much as she had; and this time she could not stop her hand from reaching out to clasp his arm gently.

 

“I only wish you had told me,” she said, and he nodded. “But I suppose – I suppose I should have asked.”

 

Jon shook his head. “I should have asked too,” he murmured. “I am sorry I caused you such pain, Sansa. I never thought you anything but beautiful; and I have always wanted to make you as happy as I ever could. And I’ll not stop trying, if you’ll let me try again.”

 

His eyes held hers earnestly, and begged her forgiveness better, as had always been Jon’s way, than his words could have done; and when she opened her mouth to beg his own forgiveness, he only shook his head. She felt his hand brush an escaped strand of hair behind her ear, and she no longer feared he wished it were golden instead of red; and she remembered the ramparts again, and how safe she had felt there, and how she had begun to hope that she and Jon could make Winterfell their home again. She remembered how the snowflakes had swirled around them, and how she had crossed the godswood clearing to marry Jon in a similar flurry of white, and how she had prayed it was a good omen, since not a flake had fallen during her wedding to Ramsay Bolton. She expected to flinch at the memory; but she only thought of Jon’s warm hands pressing gently into hers as he spoke his vows.

 

“You kissed me,” she murmured, and Jon’s hand dropped from her cheek.

 

“You kissed me,” Sansa said again, keeping her hand on his arm, “and I did not think of Ramsay Bolton at all, even though he did kiss me on our wedding night.” She shrugged. “Knowing him, he probably did it to put me at ease, so I would be more shocked and terrified when he started raping me. He would have liked that.” She stared off at the wall beyond Jon’s shoulder, but then she felt his hand resting on her own, and she focused back on him. “But I didn’t think of it at all. I don’t know what I would have thought of anything else, although I think I would have known you would be kind; but when you kissed me, I only thought of you.”

 

She felt herself flush at her own boldness; but Jon stared at her as though she had just given him the world and the moon, and his other hand reached out to cradle her cheek again, and his eyes asked, and she nodded _yes_ and closed her eyes, and cared not that they were still standing half in the hallway and in full view of any passing servants. When Jon’s lips brushed her forehead, the tingle grew in Sansa’s chest; and when they reached down to plant tender kisses upon her own, it unfurled and blossomed into her neck, her lips, her arms, her toes, her spinning head and her racing heart.

 

That, Sansa knew, was something she could endure for a lifetime.


End file.
